Deep Purple – Stormbringer – 1974 Wow, one year, two Deep Purple albums. I’ve said before that I think 1974 was a watershed year for rock music. The coalescence of so many ideas and pinnacle of concepts and conceits.In 1974 you could buy Burn and dig on the journey that Continue Reading
Purple Sabbath
Listening Post: Purple Sabbath – Deep Purple – Burn
Deep Purple – Burn – 1974 Remember Machine Head? How great that record was? And then it was followed by the highly mediocre Who Do We Think We Are? Forget that. And forget Deep Purple as you might have known them. From jump street the addition of David Coverdale as Continue Reading
Listening Post: Purple Sabbath – Deep Purple – Who Do We Think We Are!
Deep Purple – Who Do We Think We Are! – 1973 WDWTWA starts off with that familiar classic rock radio staple, “Woman From Tokyo”. I always thought it was Skynrd or Foghat or someone. Could have been Kiss for all I knew. It’s not bad it’s just very generic. It’s Continue Reading
Listening Post: Purple Sabbath – Black Sabbath – Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
Black Sabbath – Sabbath Bloody Sabbath – 1973 SBS opens with a demonstrative salvo. The title track, with it’s enormous verses and the quiet counter choruses, says we’re a long way from that industrial town. The boys are holding on to the mantle of metal god and refusing to let Continue Reading
Listening Post: Purple Sabbath – Deep Purple – Machine Head
Deep Purple – Machine Head – 1972 Hey, what’s that sound? That driving metal with the rock n roll wail? It sounds so familiar. It’s…the theme to Rock Band 2! And it’s 40 years old. “Highway Star” is the track, Machine Head is the album, Deep Purple is the band. Continue Reading
Listening Post: Purple Sabbath – Black Sabbath – Vol.4
Black Sabbath – Vol. 4 – 1972 The world of dark metal gets a little sludgier in 1972. You can almost feel the band shedding off it’s working class England stink and sliding through a thick morass of L.A. debauchery. These are gods among men, these musicians. In 1972, before Continue Reading
Listening Post: Purple Sabbath – Deep Purple – Fireball
Deep Purple – Fireball – 1971 This is great. This was what the band was leaning toward on In Rock. In fact, this is the logical progression from there. Building on the toughness of that album, Fireball, with just a few exceptions, is one strong beefcake of a record. With Continue Reading
Listening Post: Purple Sabbath – Black Sabbath – Master of Reality
Black Sabbath – Master of Reality – 1971 Is Master of Reality really just Paranoid Part 2? Sure. Why mess with success? In fact, what’s more interesting to me is that Iommi had hurt his hand before recording this record so he just tuned his guitar down a notch and Continue Reading
Listening Post: Purple Sabbath – Black Sabbath – Paranoid
Black Sabbath – Paranoid – 1970 Metal. Heavy Metal. Just what is it? I could go on some kind of descriptive bender. I could vomit adjectives till you and I are sick of reading them and writing them.Or.You could just pick up Paranoid and listen to the seven minute opening Continue Reading
Listening Post: Purple Sabbath – Deep Purple – In Rock
Almost as though answering a salvo laid down a few months earlier by Iommi, Osbourne and crew, Deep Purple came out with this spin.Rod Evans is out as vocalist and Ian Gillan is in. In other words, from the moment you hear the first track, “Speed King” you realize, this Continue Reading